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College Football Power Rankings: Week 15

Written by Steve Janus

The Florida Gators went out and defeated #1 Alabama last Saturday 31-20, earning the SEC title and the right to play for the BCS National Championship. It’s the most vulnerable that the Gators have looked in a long time, but they walked away with a double-digit victory. Now Florida is listed as a 3 point favorite over Oklahoma in the title game. You have to consider this team the best in all of college football heading into January 8th’s BCS Championship game.

Oklahoma did what they were expected to do last week, dispatching of Missouri 62-21. It was the 5th straight game in which the Sooners scored over 60 points. This offense is playing as good as any in college football right now, but it does call into question the strength of the Big 12 defenses they’ve been matched up with. The Sooners will play for the national title against the Florida Gators on January 8th. There will always be controversy about who deserves to play for the title, but I think that they got it right this year. The two best teams in college football will play for the BCS title.

The Texas Longhorns got the short end of the stick in a lot of ways this season. They missed out on the Big 12 Championship and won’t be playing for the BCS Championship even though they beat the Oklahoma Sooners in the regular season. Their problem is that they did end up losing to Texas Tech too late in the season for their BCS ranking to recover. You could make a very good argument that this team is deserving of a national title bid. It would have been nice if we could have had an Oklahoma vs Texas rematch for the Big 12 Championship and to see who should go to the BCS title game, but Texas falls victim to the current college football ranking system. The Longhorns will play again on January 5th. As of today, Texas is favored by 10 points over Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl.

Alabama’s dreams of an undefeated season and a national title run ended last Saturday at the hands of the Florida Gators. Alabama did play well, however, and the game was a lot closer than the final score indicated. It was still a very good year for the Tide, who had 6 losses last season and didn’t even finished ranked in the top 25. Alabama has accepted a bid for the Sugar Bowl and will play Utah as 10 point favorites on January 2nd.

The USC Trojans made quick work of UCLA last week to shore up their spot as Pac-10 Champs and earn a bid to the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day to face Penn State. USC is a team that feels like they still deserve a shot at the Championship. They fall victim to their strength of schedule this year. The Pac-10 just didn’t have enough highly-ranked teams early in the year to help USC build their BCS points. It’s a shame, though. Wouldn’t it be great to see how a team like USC would do in the Big 12 South or SEC East this year? Unfortunately, we will never know, but the USC Trojans do land a spot in a BCS Bowl game and are 10 point favorites over Penn State.

The Penn State Nittany Lions were of course idle again this week. Their season ended back on November 22nd. PSU put together a very nice season for Joe Paterno, their only blemish coming in a heartbreaking loss against the Iowa Hawkeyes. The Lions still managed to win the Big 10 and earn a bid to the Rose Bowl to face USC, but they will always have to wonder what might have been if it weren’t for their one loss. The Rose Bowl isn’t exactly a bad consolation prize, however, and if the Lions can find a way to get past the USC Trojans, they will have proved they would have been deserving of a look for the national title as well.

Texas Tech won 11 games this year for the first time since 1973. They had just the one loss to Oklahoma, but it came so late in the year, the Red Raiders couldn’t gain enough ground in the BCS rankings to earn a bid to one of the BCS Bowls. Tech will play on Jan. 2nd against Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl.

Utah was idle last week. The Utes finished the regular season 12-0 and, over the weekend, the Sugar Bowl selected them to play Alabama on January 2nd over Big East Champion Cincinnati. Utah is currently a 10 point underdog to Alabama.

As an undefeated team, the Boise State Broncos get left out in the cold by the BCS Bowl committees. Boise’s strength of schedule just wasn’t up to par with some of the other teams (including Utah). The Broncos will face a very tough TCU team in the Poinsetta Bowl. It has to be disappointing for Boise, but it’s one of the challenges they face by playing in the WAC.

The Fiesta Bowl selected Ohio State over the weekend to play the Texas Longhorns. This will be an interesting match up as the Longhorns have to be one motivated team after being passed over for the BCS Championship. Ohio State lost in a terrible game against USC earlier in the season and lost a close game to Penn State in week 9. All things considered, those losses don’t seem that bad. The Buckeyes are the best 2 loss team in college football right now, though it would be valid to argue that Texas Tech or Boise State is actually more deserving of the Fiesta bid.

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